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Thank you to my firstborn baby, my buddy, my son.

I had no idea how much you would change me. I miss my freedoms before you. I miss the youthful days of listening to loud music in the car and taking long showers without interruption. I miss late nights with friends, eating meals as slowly as I want, and binge watching movies. I miss sleeping through the night and waking hours after sunrise on the weekends. I miss a rested body and mind. Knowing that every decision I make, every path I walk down, every dream I chase directly impacts you and who you become - it weighs heavy on my heart. Will I get it right?

But every sacrifice is worth it. I am a better person now. You make me see the world differently. Your play forces me out of my swirling, emotionally-charged thoughts and into the world of roaring, rocks, and rain puddles. I notice things I was too busy to see. I am grateful for things I took for granted. I strive less, compare less, and love more. I realize that my greatest contribution to the world may be raising you - and it gives me eternal purpose.

I miss my pre-baby body and health. There was so much recovering after you were born. Then I look at you, and I am reminded that I carried and brought life into our world. Your life. And for a split second it erases all the negativity and scarcity out there because there is so much fullness of joy in here.

Time has slipped through my grasp like dry sand. You used to fit into the crevice of my arm. Now, you are big, boyish - and you change too quickly for my heart to keep pace. I am trying not to grieve the passing of time but to celebrate each new season for what it brings.

I am breathing in all the moments because they are a vapor.

Thank you for teaching me patience. The world has trained me to keep busy, be fast-paced, plan and produce. But nothing is urgent to you. Putting shoes on and walking to the car is its own adventure. From breastfeeding to sleeping to tantrums, you have taught me to keep my expectations flexible and cherish each day’s beautiful simplicity.

Thank you for teaching me calm. My propensity to be a striving busy-body does not serve us well most days. I may have one agenda, but your needs often supersede it. As the years pass, I won’t care that you refused to take a nap or eat your peas or that you accidentally pulled my hair out with your sticky hands. I will care more about the overall mood of these days, and I will want you to feel peace when you look back on them.

Thank you for teaching me to embrace chaos. My thorn is perfectionism, my kryptonite control. But you see the world wide open and have taught me that discipline and structure coexist with flexibility and spontaneity. In fact, the best days are the least perfect ones. You are softening my edges year by year.

Thank you for teaching me humility. You are not a riddle to solve nor do you fit into the boxes of what “they” recommend. You are a mystery, and it humbles me to lean in and be vulnerable to the unknowns of motherhood. No secret formulas, no perfect schedules, no little person life hacks. Just a child needing to be learned and loved.

Thank you for teaching me unconditional love. No matter what hysterics or sleeplessness or mess the day holds, my heart is unmoved in its undeniable love for you. It is true what they say - there is no love like a mother’s love for her child. I have never truly felt the gravity of the statement, “I would do anything for you” until now.

Thank you for being my ‘guinea pig,’ the firstborn, with whom I first learned what it is to be a mama.

Thank you for being an amazing blend of serious and happy, cautious and adventurous, wild and serene. As our favorite book says,

I love you, I love you

In so many ways

Over thousands of years

Over billions of days.

Love always,

MOM